


The Love Song Affair

by Ingu



Series: The Man From Tumblr [7]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Emotionally Repressed, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, Prompt Fill, Realization, Songfic, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu/pseuds/Ingu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Napoleon hears it after Rome, he’s in a Midtown bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Song Affair

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Love Song Affair 情歌风波](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5160614) by [llletusw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/llletusw/pseuds/llletusw)



> [Prompt](http://ingu.tumblr.com/post/131721605963/prompt-since-napolleon-saved-illya-from-drowning): Since Napolleon saved Illya from drowning he [keeps] associating the song [‘Che vuole questa musica stasera’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bd6OLgnRcw) with the Russian. He can’t stop but think about him every time he hears it somewhere. It’s even playing in radio when he looks at Illya and realize he is in love with him.
> 
> Chinese translation also available [here](http://www.movietvslash.com/thread-184702-1-1.html) (registration required).

The first time Napoleon hears it after Rome, he’s in a Midtown bar.

The place is a little melting pot of Europe, decorated with a mosaic of cultural artifacts that are managed with a surprising level of taste and sophistication. Accordingly, it attracts a diverse crowd of people, and in every corner you can hear a different language being spoken. It’s one of Napoleon’s favorite haunts when he is in the city, if only for the ease of anonymity in a place usually filled more with tourists and expatriates than the native New Yorker.

The vocalist that night is singing Italian classics, with a few popular modern pieces tossed in every now and then. When the piano riff first begins, Napoleon doesn’t immediately recognize the song. He flirts with a charming redhead (Lauren, from Manchester), but it only takes a few lines for him to become distracted from his conversation, trying to figure out why the music sounds so familiar.

The woman falls silent as she comes to the end of a story, and Napoleon is a beat too slow in his reaction. The song swells with its first climax, and abruptly, Napoleon remembers the truck, the sweet taste of Italian wine, and the pressure of water as it poured through the opening window. He remembers the heavy weight of Illya in his arms, and the startling relief of hearing the Russian cough up the water he had inhaled.

The song continues, and Napoleon can only think of Illya. Even as he listens to the words of the woman in front of him, he remembers Illya’s grumpiness as he realized they had to share the Vespa, the slight tremble of his hands as he settled on the seat behind him and gripped Napoleon’s soaked jacket.

As the night goes on, the woman’s interest wanes with his clear inattention. She leaves not fifteen minutes after the song ends, and Napoleon is left with restlessness in his bones, feeling agitated without knowing why.

He thinks of finding someone new to distract him, but the bar, which had seemed filled with curious people a mere half hour ago, is now completely disinteresting. Every prospective companion is either too short, too feminine, or just somehow _wrong_.

Napoleon doesn’t know what he’s looking for, he doesn’t _want_ to know what he’s looking for, so he doesn’t question himself when he charms a statuesque blonde beauty and takes her to a hotel that night.

 

-

 

The next time he hears the song, he is in a record shop in Monaco, looking for things which may be of interest to Gaby, who has been developing a significant song collection since breaking out from under Soviet control. The record player playing merrily in the corner comes to the end of a Spanish love ballad, and the store owner switches it out for something new.

The familiar piano melody begins, accompanied by light drum beats, and memories stir within Napoleon. He slows, and then pauses browsing a column of jazz records.

“Excuse me,” he says, walking closer to the store owner, voice raised to be heard over the music. “What song is this?”

The man blinks at him confusedly, and Napoleon points at the record player, his mind churning through his limited French vocabulary to find the right words. It takes a moment, but the store owner seems to understand his question without needing him to speak it in the right language. The man turns, picks up the cardboard packaging, and shows it to Napoleon. A dark haired man with soulful eyes stares out at him from the cover.

Napoleon gawks at it a moment, recognizing for the first time that the song is actually called: ‘Che vuole questa musica stasera’.

Then, he motions that he wants to buy it.

 

-

 

He doesn’t give it to Gaby, but she finds it in his luggage the next evening anyway. She doesn’t bother to ask before she puts it on, and then settles in a chair next to Napoleon just as the lyrics begin. Napoleon, who had been carefully sewing a tear in his seams of his favorite suit, is immediately distracted by the familiar melody.

“This sounds really sad,” Gaby says, thirty seconds into the song.

“It’s about remembering a lost love,” Napoleon says absently, studying his needlework.

“I thought you didn’t do things like love.”

They’d had a semi- _deep_ conversation a few weeks back, when Napoleon was a little too drunk celebrating a job well done and Gaby a little less so. Now she never lets him live it down.

Napoleon gives her a dark look, but he doesn’t deny it. “I can still appreciate good music.”

“Says the man who’s only ever bought one record.”

“Don’t you have some recon to do?” says the man who has a perfectly modest collection of music in his apartment back home. Not that he plans to give Gaby the satisfaction.

Gaby waves her hand at him dismissively, and wanders off.

Napoleon returns to his sewing, except now he’s wondering what sort of music Illya enjoys. He thinks through the popular musical fads of the past few years, and starts picturing the tall Russian doing the Mashed Potato dance. The mental image has him grinning for hours.

 

-

 

He hears the song again in an alleyway in Edinburgh, drifting out the upper floor window of a nearby apartment. Illya is crouched in front of the side door to their target’s home, struggling with the lock. Napoleon is fighting the urge to laugh, and when the song comes on, stirring familiar feelings to life, he can’t hide his smile.

“Are you sure you don’t-“

“I said I’ve got this, Cowboy.”

Illya doesn’t, he really doesn’t. Napoleon can tell the lock is a LeaderSec D23 model, with a specialized pin and sidebar system famous for its innovative anti-pick design, but Illya is still going at it like it’s a regular tumbler lock. Illya is supposed to be the KGB’s top agent. How had he turned out so endearingly hopeless at lock-picking?

They’re not in any rush, so Napoleon lets Illya go at it for a while longer, scanning the alleyway idly and taking the chance that no one will walk in to find them in such a suspicious position.

A few seconds later, there is a distinct click that signals success, and Napoleon looks down toward the lock in surprise. Illya straightens, murmuring in triumph. His lips twist with something Napoleon can almost call a smirk, and something about the way Illya’s eyes crinkle with joy sends an odd emotion shooting straight through Napoleon’s heart. It’s an indescribable mix of things, a bizarre configuration of lust and affection and longing and… something else not unpleasant.

“Well done,” Napoleon whispers, feeling strangely lost, itching with that feeling he has when he sees something beautiful that isn’t his.

They find the intelligence they want without trouble, yet the agitation doesn’t go away.

 

-

 

“Che vuole questa musica stasera…”

During stakeouts, there is never much to do while waiting for their target of the week to reveal themselves (as well as their nefarious plans). Napoleon squints through his binoculars, studies the closed door and the curtained windows that has shown no change in three hours, and then puts it down again.

“Che mi riporta un poco del passato…”

Illya is in the car beside him, silent and imposing as always. Napoleon sings softly to himself just to fill the silence, and tries not to think about Illya’s warm presence beside him.

“La luna ci teneva compagnia. Io ti sentivo mia,,,”

“Io ti sentivo mia.”

A second voice joins his, and Napoleon stares at his partner in alarm. Illya doesn’t so much as look at him, his eyes fixed on the house in the distance, and continues singing in an undertone.

“Soltanto mia…”

Hesitant, and feeling far more conflicted than he should, Napoleon turns back to watch their target’s hideout and continues the song.

“Soltanto mia..”

Illya isn’t supposed to know the song, and Napoleon feels oddly exposed, sitting in a tiny car with Illya and mumbling an Italian love song. The sound of Ilya’s voice flows over Napoleon like silk, and has him craving for something both savoury and sweet. Has he always wanted to kiss Illya this badly?

Napoleon waits for something to interrupt the moment, for their target – an illegal arms trader selling stolen weapons – to burst from the inside of the house, for something to explode in a ball of fire, for Gaby to materialize outside their car and knock against the window. But nothing happens. The night is tranquil, the street lit with pale moonlight, and Illya is singing next to him.

The song ends, yet the music is still ringing in Napoleon’s ears, playing in an endless loop.

 

-

 

“That song you were singing…”

Afterward in the safehouse, with their intelligence gathered and their target collared, Napoleon’s questions tumble out.

“Hm?” Illya is packing his suitcase, and pays minimal attention to Napoleon standing in the doorway.

“How do you know the lyrics?”

“Are you serious?” Illya darts him a glance full of doubt. “You play it constantly in your hotel rooms, it’s impossible not to know the lyrics.”

Napoleon opens his mouth, and then withholds his indignant retort as the implications of Illya’s words strike him.

“Have you been listening?”

Illya has the decency to look guilty, even though he is folding shirts into neat squares. “Only sometimes,” he says, “It’s a good song.”

Rationally, Napoleon knows he should be offended, because there are such things as _privacy,_ and _boundaries_. But his mind is somehow stuck on the fact that Illya _listens,_ that he _likes_ Napoleon’s favorite song, his body reacting with an inappropriate surge of warmth as though it somehow signifies that Illya isn’t merely paranoid but actually _cares_.

Confronted with the astonishing fact that he’s mentally turned into a thirteen year old girl with a crush, Napoleon makes like a tree to leave.

“Where’s my spare clip of ammo?” Illya mumbles before Napoleon can escape, and Napoleon turns to find the Russian pulling at empty drawers in distress.

Napoleon digs into his pocket, and tosses the stolen goods back to its rightful owner. Illya catches it with lightning reflexes, and Napoleon flees for his room.

 

-

 

Napoleon stops playing the record.

He can’t bring himself to leave it behind in a hotel somewhere, but he also can’t bear playing it again knowing that Illya might be listening through yet another planted bug.

He’d never thought of his indulgence as private, or even precious, but there is no other explanation for how Illya’s blasé disinterest in the song hurts him. Somewhere along the way, Napoleon had allowed himself to fixate on a three minute melody to the point of…

It’s only a song, after all.

 

-

 

Not for the first time, the universe ignores Napoleon’s wishes. A week later in Milan, the song comes onto the radio.

Napoleon glares at the offending appliance, sitting atop a crate of oranges at a nearby grocer. There’s the sound of familiar footsteps, and Illya walks up to him and bumps his shoulder, handing him a waffle cone heaped with chocolate ice cream.

Brooding becomes a little more difficult when you’re eating something deliciously sweet with your hands, and they wander side by side through the local markets, performing reconnaissance for an operation that night. Illya’s ice cream is strawberry, and it smudges at the corner of his mouth. His tongue laps at the melting liquid, pink and irritating, and Napoleon has the overwhelming urge to taste it.

Instead, he focuses on devouring his own cone, and ends up having to lick melted ice cream off of his fingers.

He’s so busy ignoring Illya that he almost yelps in surprise when a large hand wraps around his arm and pulls him into an alley. There’s something disturbingly intense about Illya’s expression as he pushes Napoleon against the wall behind a tall stack of crates. Napoleon opens his mouth to voice his outrage, and is silenced by a furious kiss.

Illya, unsurprisingly, tastes like strawberry. There’s a pleasurable heat blossoming inside him, and everything clicks into place all at once. His fingers dig into Illya’s hair, and with his free hand Napoleon pulls Illya even closer. In between considering the texture of Illya’s insistent lips, and the burn of those wandering hands, Napoleon thinks that maybe this isn’t some sort of strange infatuation after all.

For the first time since he can remember, Napoleon feels like everything he has ever wanted is right there in his arms. And through it all, the same old song whispers at the back of his mind.

_Che vuole questa musica stasera…_

-

 

Their safehouse in Brussels has a record player, a fact Napoleon only notes in passing on their first night as he is tripping into the bed and pulling Illya on top of him. Hot, blissful hours later, when he is adrift in the pleasant haze between sleep and wakefulness, a painfully familiar song begins to play from the adjoining room.

Napoleon frowns, but he is too comfortable for serious thought, so he lets the music float around him, tickling his thoughts and memories. A moment later, the bed dips beside him, and Illya is at his side again, crawling ever closer. A calloused hand settles on his hip, and wanders upward, tracing the lines of his back. Napoleon feels a gentle kiss being pressed against an old bullet scar.

“What is that,” Napoleon murmurs sleepily.

“It’s music.”

“I can tell that much.”

There’s a few seconds of quiet silence, and Illya wraps his arm around Napoleon’s chest, pulling him in tight. The song plays softly, long-memorized lyrics dancing the background of his consciousness.

In the morning, Napoleon might push for an explanation, ask Illya where and why. Did he somehow steal Napoleon’s copy from his New York apartment? Or had his partner gone out and bought one for himself? Those are interesting questions, all of them, but not suited for this moment.

In this moment, with Illya’s nose pressed against his neck, Napoleon falls asleep, thinking of the heavy weight of Illya at his back, and the sweet taste of Italian wine and strawberry.

 


End file.
